Where do Nats fans ride Metro after games?

The Washington Nationals clinched the National League East last night while playing at their ballpark just a few steps from Metro. Many Nats fans avail themselves of transit. I wondered where fans go by train after the games, and WMATA provided the data for a few evening games.

Circles have area proportional to the numbers of trips.

The data set includes 10 evening games spread from April to August. Half of the games were during the week, and the other half were on Fridays or Saturdays. I looked at the number of boardings at Navy Yard starting in the same hour as the last pitch and going through system closing.

The 10 busiest destinations are a mix of urban and suburban stations:

Top 10 destination stations

Where fans go after Nats games

Rank

Station

Average trips

1

Gallery Place

587.20

2

Vienna

518.56

3

Pentagon City

404.70

4

Shady Grove

320.33

5

Greenbelt

306.10

Rank

Station

Average trips

6

Franconia-Springfield

297.89

7

U Street

292.20

8

Dupont Circle

290.20

9

Columbia Heights

277.90

10

Crystal City

268.00

The presence of 4 end-of-line stations suggests that many riders are headed home to the farther-out suburbs directly after their games. The high ranking of Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, and Crystal City could signify the neighborhoods where more urban fans tend to live, or perhaps where they go for entertainment after the game.

Gallery Place’s top ranking is a little surprising. It’s probably up there because many fans are headed for a drink after game’s end. Looking at the individual games, Gallery Place ranks in 1st place in half of the games in the data set. It also ranks 2nd twice, and 3rd, 4th, and 8th once each.

Is there an east-west divide?

Photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr.

The region often talks about an east-west divide between jobs and housing. The eastern side of the region doesn’t have many jobs, resulting in many long commutes toward Montgomery County or Northern Virginia.

It appears there might also be an east-west baseball enthusiasm gap.

Other than Greenbelt (#5) and Branch Avenue (#11), few stations on the east side of the region have much ridership following Nats games. Anacostia (#19), New Carrollton (#26), College Park (#32), and Suitland (#36) are the only other east-side stations that fall in the top half of destinations.

On the other hand, 6 east-side stations are in the bottom 10. And the other 4 in the bottom 10 are stations in downtown DC.

Bottom 10 destination stations

Where fewer fans go after Nats games

Rank

Station

Average trips

75

Capitol Heights

13.10

76

Federal Triangle

12.80

77

Landover

12.10

78

Morgan Blvd

11.80

79

Cheverly

10.40

Rank

Station

Average trips

80

Stadium/Armory

10.30

81

Federal Ctr SW

8.50

82

Smithsonian

8.40

83

Judiciary Square

6.30

84

Deanwood

6.00

It’s also possible that this effect comes from the data set only looking at riders who enter at Navy Yard, not at Capitol South and Eastern Market. A fan going to New Carrollton will save a lot of time by walking to Capitol South for the Orange Line, but that trip is not counted; it only is if that fan rode from Navy Yard to L’Enfant Plaza and transferred.

Notes on methodology

The data capture everyone who enters the system after a Nats game, not simply Nats fans. It also includes stadium employees and anyone else who happened to board the Metro at Navy Yard after the game ended.

Because Metro often closes parts of lines on weekends, some stations received odd rankings on certain dates. To help adjust for this, the numbers in this post reflect adjusted averages. I excluded any station that was downstream from a closure on the date of a game, or any station that was closed for work. I also excluded the last station before the closure because that station generally saw much higher-than-normal ridership.

For example, on Friday, July 20, the Red Line was closed between Friendship Heights and Grosvenor starting at 10 pm. On that date, Friendship Heights (which ranks 30th overall) came in first. Shady Grove, which is almost always in the top 10, came in 52nd. These numbers clearly are an artifact of temporary service patterns instead of a trend.

The adjusted average has the same top 10 stations as the unadjusted average, though the order is different. The stations in 4th, 5th, and 6th place are affected because of closures.

This analysis also only looked at traffic from Navy Yard, even though we know that many Nats fans walk or take other transit to meet the Orange Line at Capitol South or Eastern Market. At Navy Yard, we can safely assume the vast majority of people entering right after the game are Nats fans. In contrast, that assumption probably won’t hold as strongly for the Orange Line stations.

Here’s the full list, shown ranked by the (adjusted) average number of passengers riding there from Navy Yard over all 10 games:

Destination stations

Where fans go after Nats games

Rank

Station

1

Gallery Place

2

Vienna

3

Pentagon City

4

Shady Grove

5

Greenbelt

6

Franconia-Springfield

7

U Street

8

Dupont Circle

9

Columbia Heights

10

Crystal City

11

Branch Avenue

12

Rosslyn

13

Foggy Bottom

14

Huntington

15

Ballston

16

L’Enfant Plaza

17

West Falls Church

18

Bethesda

19

Anacostia

20

King Street

21

East Falls Church

22

Mount Vernon Square

23

Court House

24

Grosvenor

25

Woodley Park

26

New Carrollton

27

Silver Spring

28

Fort Totten

29

Clarendon

30

Friendship Heights

31

Dunn Loring

32

College Park

33

Eisenhower Avenue

34

Glenmont

35

Archives

36

Suitland

37

Braddock Road

38

McPherson Square

39

Tenleytown

40

Union Station

41

Farragut North

42

Georgia Avenue

Rank

Station

43

Van Ness

44

Metro Center

45

Cleveland Park

46

Virginia Square

47

Pentagon

48

Shaw

49

Rockville

50

Southern Avenue

51

Forest Glen

52

Farragut West

53

Van Dorn Street

54

Prince George’s Plaza

55

NoMa

56

Naylor Road

57

Twinbrook

58

Takoma

59

White Flint

60

Wheaton

61

West Hyattsville

62

Rhode Island Avenue

63

Brookland

64

Largo

65

Congress Heights

66

Waterfront

67

Medical Center

68

Benning Road

69

National Airport

70

Eastern Market

71

Potomac Avenue

72

Addison Road

73

Minnesota Avenue

74

Capitol South

75

Capitol Heights

76

Federal Triangle

77

Landover

78

Morgan Boulevard

79

Cheverly

80

Stadium/Armory

81

Federal Center SW

82

Smithsonian

83

Judiciary Square

84

Deanwood

Update: The original post showed circles with the diameter proportional to the number of trips, rather than the area. The map has now been updated.

Matt Johnson has lived in the Washington area since 2007. He has a Master’s in Planning from the University of Maryland and a BS in Public Policy from Georgia Tech. He lives in Greenbelt. He’s a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He is a contract employee of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. His views are his own and do not represent those of his employer.